Flea market cruisers, vintage-furniture lovers and veteran collectors all have one more spot to focus their monthly perambulations in search of good stuff.

Audrey Porter and Whitney Beard opened Room With a Past in 2004 after both wanted a way to focus on their twin interests in buying and selling collectibles yet still have time for their families.

Theirs is a big warehouse on Third Avenue in Walnut Creek where they collect their acquisitions and hold a blowout sale once a month, usually on the third weekend. This month's sale is coming up Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

"We search for things that we think are good-looking pieces of furniture that can be used in more ways than one and in different settings," Porter said, the hallmarks being that a piece should be "cute, have good lines and a good price."

The women look for things in all categories for the home and garden. They're big on the shabby chic look as well as 1950s vintage and general kitsch and whimsy. (Lamp shown right at top, $65; dishes $9 a piece). They come across the occasional rare antique, which they pass on to customers at a good price, they say. They don't offer any 1960s, 1970s or modern items.

Their customers seem to desire painted furniture such as hutches, cabinets, tables, (red top table, right center; $165) chairs and "side tables," Porter said. "Things that can be moved around very easily and don't break the bank."

Very little is ever priced at more than $300, and most items go for less than $100 (framed print, bottom right; $39), she said.

Room With a Past held its first sale for about 100 to 200 people but now has a mailing list of 1,900.

Porter said she and Beard enjoy helping customers figure out what to do with an item. "You show us something, we'll give you five different ways to use it," she said. "We love doing that."

The inventory is fresh each month because Beard and Porter keep finding new stuff. Some of their best finds come from people ready to move out and "they just want to get rid of stuff that doesn't fit" in their new homes.

Room With a Past is open this weekend only this month, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday. 1557 Third Ave. (at Baldwin Lane), Walnut Creek. (925) 933-1903. www.roomwithapast.com.

A BIT OF POLISH /

Revisiting the grand hotels

The use of good silver and china in hotels has declined. For various reasons -- cost, maintenance, customs -- much of what was in use in the era of grand hotels has been sold or given away and now is a hot collectible.

Collectors value hotel silver for its history, looks and quality, according to San Franciscan Lynn Goldfinger-Abram, who began adding silver to her antiques habit about seven or eight years ago.

She was in Alabaster, on Hayes Street, when she found a dome from the late Ernie's restaurant and thought "it was incredible-looking stuff."

The great-granddaughter of Samuel Berger, a Romanian immigrant who carved the wood in many of the city's great churches at the turn of the century, she became enraptured by the quality and history of hotel silver.

"It's more ornate, decorative and much heavier grade" than what's used now, she said.

At the time, she was a personal assistant to blues artist John Lee Hooker but decided to go into business trading her pieces and began Paris Hotel Boutique, an online business, three years ago.

About 20 percent of her inventory comes from old San Francisco hotels like the Fairmont (Presidential plate, shown above, above left, $250) Clift (Fish and salad forks bottom left, $120) or Palace, but the rest comes from New York, Paris and less glitzy spots (Creamer from Villa Hotel in San Mateo, above right, $110).

Hotel silver has become popular because it evokes sentimental memories for some -- seven women in Goldfinger-Abram's family were married at the Fairmont -- has great romantic cache and also works well with various entertaining styles.

"You could be having pizza and bring out the hotel silver," she said.

Domes that covered food, teapots, platters and tableware are the most common items. Some tea and coffee pots, she warned, may not be useable due to corrosion, but almost everything else is.

She's found pieces at shops, flea markets and estate sales, and says eBay is less reliable as a source. On her Web site she offers other finds from great hotels and furniture on a French theme.

Her most unusual collectibles are gilt metal crowns (shown above) made in France around 1900 for use in the theater or from saints' statues. They're real treasures, priced at $400 to $1,000.